At the ISTE Live conference in June of 2024, I ran across a very intriguing and useful product. Pocketalk is an easy-to-use voice translator and was created to support the fields of healthcare, government, public safety, logistics, and education.
The Pocketalk is truly a personal voice translator. There are over 84 languages on the devices and they would be a worthwhile addition to any school!
Imagine having seamless conversations with parents at a conference or IEP meeting, providing multilingual support for students who speak any language, and boosting the self-esteem of a student with the instant translation and conversation back and forth with his or her peers! With the number of languages being spoken in schools today, the Pocketalk Voice Translatorbridges the communication gap with its easy-to-use interface and its powerful technology.
Imagine having seamless conversations with parents at a conference or IEP meeting, providing multilingual support for students who speak any language, and boosting the self-esteem of a student with the instant translation and conversation back and forth with his or her peers! With the number of languages being spoken in schools today, the Pocketalk Voice Translatorbridges the communication gap with its easy-to-use interface and its powerful technology.
I am reviewing the smaller Pocketalk S. I received the Pocketalk S, instructions for setting it up, the charger and cable, a protective case for the back of the device, and a lanyard to keep the Pocketalk S around my neck if I need to. I love the lanyard feature because a teacher could easily converse with a student right at the students desk!
The Pocketalk Voice Translator is already used in over five hundred school districts world-wide and I can definitely see why it is so popular! The Pocketalk comes in two sizes which both have similar features. The smaller Pocketalk S is about the size and weight of the last Apple iPod and the Pocketalk Plus is the size and weight of a smallish iPhone.
SOME POCKETALK PLUS SPECS | SOME POCKETALK S SPECS |
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I put my Pocketalk S through some rudimentary testing. First I translated a birthday greeting to my friend Junior from Brazil.
I then used the camera to translate a portion of a textbook in English to German. I took a photo of the English text with the camera, then OCR'd the text, and I could listen to the instructions both in English and German!
There are a number of other features on the Pocketalk Voice Translator. As you can see from the image below, in addition to the camera translation option, there is a group translation feature that allows users to chat with multiple Pocketalk users by creating a chat group. There is even a useful money exchange converter and length, weight, and temperature converters, too!
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The Pocketalk Voice Translator is a great tech support tool for schools!
There is even a software management tool available to provide the district with analytic reporting of usage and translations, manage all the devices, and monitor the needs of the users, as seen below.
There is even a software management tool available to provide the district with analytic reporting of usage and translations, manage all the devices, and monitor the needs of the users, as seen below.
Find out more about Pocketalk for education and read some case studies here. And be sure to look at the full specifications for the devices here for the the Pocketalk Plus Voice Translator and here for the Pocketalk S Voice Translator. It is amazing what these devices can do to support teaching and learning in a meaningful way!
